


Mad Together

by Melody_Of_The_River



Series: Bottom Erwin Week 2019 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Erwin Week 2019, Day 1: Reincarnation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reincarnation, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 19:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19157578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Of_The_River/pseuds/Melody_Of_The_River
Summary: He isn’t much sure of anything these days. Not that he ever was before, but it’s gotten worse. His dreams are getting more real and his reality is getting more dream-like and he doesn’t know what’s going on in either. He wakes up one day between the teeth of a giant man-like cannibal, and on another, he’s in his office, hands resting on the keyboard, staring at a blank screen. Some days, there is a man there with him, watching him work with low-lidded eyes – a demon he chooses to ignore until all the work is done. But when he’s at home, he indulges in him, his imaginary friend, who is at once beautiful and frightening. His name is Levi - he thinks - and there could not be a more fitting name.





	Mad Together

**Author's Note:**

> A million and one thanks to the awesome tidal-sehnsucht ([Tumblr](https://tidal-sehnsucht.tumblr.com/) [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessk_ing/pseuds/crownlessk_ing)) for beta-ing this fic!❤️ Follow me on tumblr at [melodyoftheriver](https://melodyoftheriver.tumblr.com/) for more Eruris!

“I think I’m going insane,” he says, trembling fingertips running circles on the rim of his half-filled wine glass, eliciting a sharp shrill from it. “I’m going mad. No. I’ve always been mad... Very hard to explain _why_ you’re mad,” he sighs, “Even if you’re not.”

The woman leans forward in her chair and places a gentle hand on top of Erwin’s, a fake show of concern when all she really wants is for the irritating ringing to stop. It had been a comforting, distracting, noise – something to focus on, something to ground him in the here and now – but with its absence, Erwin finds himself once again overwhelmed by all the life that bustles around him, too loud for comfort, even in this little quiet corner of his little hometown. It just feels so unreal, all of it – every sound, every tactile sensation. He looks down at the hand that’s curled up into a fist on his leg, unclenches it, rubs the clammy palm on the fabric of his dress pants – and he can’t believe it’s his. It’s like he’s watching himself do these things – talk to this woman, eat at this restaurant, live in this city, breathe its _fucking_ air – without actually feeling like he’s doing them. Like his body is a car on autopilot and his brain is the driver tied up and gagged in the backseat. It’s like a stage play, like he’s watching himself play a role, and any moment now the curtains will part and he’ll remember again what was _real_.

He doesn’t, though.

He’s _mad_ , is all. He’s always been mad. Mad for fucking years. _Absolutely years, been off the edge for –_

“You’re _not_ mad, Erwin,” the woman sighs sadly and moves her hand away from his. Erwin’s fingers resume tracing the edge of his glass, and the ringing is just enough to lull him back into a comfortable haze again. He faintly registers the woman picking up her bag from where it’s hanging on her chair, and leaning forward to place a soft kiss on Erwin’s brow. “You’re not mad,” she repeats, quiet so as not to disturb his musings, “Just lost.”

He thinks he hears her mutter an apology, but he can’t be sure. He isn’t much sure of anything these days. Not that he ever was before, but it’s gotten worse. His dreams are getting more real and his reality is getting more dream-like and he doesn’t know what’s going on in either. He wakes up one day between the teeth of a giant man-like cannibal, and on another, he’s in his office, hands resting on the keyboard, staring at a blank screen. Some days, there is a man there with him, watching him work with low-lidded eyes – a demon he chooses to ignore until all the work is done. But when he’s at home, he indulges in him, his imaginary friend, who is at once beautiful and frightening. His name is Levi - he thinks - and there could not be a more fitting name.

 

“ _Lost_ ,” the woman’s voice comes back to him a few days later, as if it had gotten stuck in the catacombs of his brain and is only now echoing back to him. Erwin doesn’t really know what to do with that – _Lost_ . Mad, he knows how to process. Mad, he’s come to accept. Mad, he’s come to _ignore_ . But lost… he can’t really ignore “ _lost_ ”. _Lost_ means someone is still looking, _lost_ means someone can still be _found_ . As long as they are not really _forgotten_. And Erwin has never been one to forget.

 

There is a manuscript sitting at the bottom of his closet, buried underneath a mountain of clothes from the past decade that he no longer wears. It takes a while to fish it out, but it’s worth it when he does. It is a manuscript that he spent half his twenties writing, and he had rather hoped to publish it when he was finished but any company he sent a copy to said the same thing – nihilistic, morbid. _Mad_ . He had jeopardized many a personal relationship to finish it, and in hindsight, it was probably unwise of him to do so, let a half-finished idea take over so much of his life, but he had no choice. He _had_ to write – about the battles at Trost and Shiganshina, about the resistance, about the dream of freedom. About Levi, lying with his head in Erwin’s lap in a field of sunflowers on a peaceful day, and riding his horse into battle next to him on a bad one. About Levi, and all those moments in time which are theirs, and theirs alone.

He had to write… lest he forget before he could put it into words.

 

Erwin takes a seat on the floor beside the closet, and gently opens the manuscript to its first page. There, in the center of the moth-eaten, coffee-stained paper, lies the dedication he had written what seems like a lifetime ago now: “ _To my Captain, wherever you may be.”_ He traces the curves of the letters that make up the word – “ _Captain_ ” – trying to remember what the features of the man who held that title felt like under his hand. Isn’t it mad of him, trying to remember the face of a man he has never seen, a touch he has never felt, a voice he has never heard? It’s madness, all of it. It _must_ be. How else can he explain the dreams that have been plaguing him since he was a boy of eight, whispering the name “ _Levi_ ” under his breath as he blew out the candles on his birthday. An overactive imagination, they said, but he’s thirty-four now, and he has never stopped. Never been able to forget that name or that face or all the memories he remembers sharing with this man. Memories from a thousand years ago, still buried beneath his skin.

They’re not sad memories, not most of them anyway, so Erwin doesn’t understand why the novel is. Erwin finished the manuscript way back in the summer of his twenty-fifth year – he doesn’t remember much of anything he wrote now – but he gets why no one was willing to publish it. It’s morbid, yes, but it’s also wholly without direction – sad, only for the purpose of being sad. All the ugliness of that world and none of the beauty, and Erwin wonders why he wrote it that way. The Levi he knows is beautiful, all grace and agility. Power beyond anything he has ever seen. Simmering rage in the depths of those lovely grey eyes; affection boiling through every kiss he places to Erwin’s skin, every caress to his cheek. The still of the hand on his heart. The lips that trail down his spine.

It’s easy to get lost in the fantasy of his Levi.

The book he has written has none of that. None of the Levi that makes love to him in his dreams, or the Levi that saves him from perdition in his nightmares. He wants to tear up the pages from how unfair they are to his Levi, how they back Levi into a corner, pass his decisions up to consequence, strip him of his autonomy. The Levi he knows would never do anything unless he wanted to. He’d stand by his decisions and put all of humanity on the line, if that’s what it came to. The words do not do him justice.

 

Erwin slams the manuscript shut before he can read the last page. The ending is terrible. It leaves a bitter taste in Erwin’s mouth. Makes the whole book seem like a waste of his time with how pointless it is. So many stories left unfinished, and no real meaning to any of them. Erwin _hates_ it. He picks up the manuscript and passes it through the shredder the moment he’s finished with it – a decade’s worth of work, gone in a moment just like that. Erwin can’t help but sigh in relief. _Finally_ , he thinks, like it’s a weight off his chest, because it is. His story deserves so much more justice than what he wrote. Levi deserves so much more justice than what he wrote. His _choice_ deserves so much more justice than what he wrote.  

So… Erwin decides to write him a better story. One that does do them justice, one that gives meaning to the life that was cut short so suddenly when he was mere inches from his dream. One that honors Levi’s sacrifice for letting him go. And one that conveys Erwin’s gratitude to him, for freeing him from himself. Because even if there’s the slightest chance that a Levi of this world exists, that a Levi of this world can _hear_ him… he wants him to know. He wants him to know that he has not forgotten, and he wants him to know that, above all, Erwin is _thankful_.

So, Erwin pulls up his chair, turns on his laptop, and begins to write again.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few years later, at a literary festival that Erwin gets invited to for a book reading, that he finally sees him.

“ _Leon takes a deep breath and folds up Emil’s sleeve up to his elbow, syringe at the ready_ ,” Erwin reads - the ending that he has finally decided on for himself, though he has no idea what Levi really did after he charged headfirst into battle towards his own death. “ _His hand trembles violently, and he grabs at his arm to steady it. Emil looks so peaceful like this, and if Leon ignores the gaping hole at his side, he could almost be… sleeping. He looks like the weight of the world has finally been lifted from his shoulders. Leon doesn’t ever remember a time when he looked like this. So calm. So… free,”_ Erwin’s voice always cracks at this part, “ _What kind of man would he be if he brought him back to this life, to this endless cycle of violence and war, where the only men who survive are those that_ let _themselves becomes demons, kill lest they_ be _killed? Leon_ is _that man, Leon has always_ been _that man. This world is the only world he has ever known. But Emil…_

 _Emil had a dream. A child’s dream, untainted, pure. What kind of man would he be if he dirtied that dream with a blood of a child? To bring him back, only for him to suffer? How could he claim to_ love _Emil if he put the burden of another child’s death, the guilt of survival, back onto his shoulders?_

_Emil’s voice comes back to him then, the last words he had ever said to him: “Thank you"... and Leon knows._

_He puts down the syringe.”_

Erwin turns the page over.

“ _It’s time to let him go.”_

 

Erwin closes the book slowly and takes off his reading glasses. The crowd erupts into a dumbfounded applause as soon as he finishes, and Erwin smiles, eyes half-scanning the room for a face he might recognize. He grimaces when he predictably doesn’t, and brings that trained humble smile back to his face, trying to keep the disappointment from showing. It’s been a few weeks since the tour began, and Erwin doubts he’ll ever find Levi. If he even exists in this reality to begin with.

People approach his table, one after the other, present their copies for him to sign, and he does so dutifully, smiling at them and adding something personal to each note. His hand never leaves the rim of his burgundy glass, the slow, continuous ringing keeping him grounded in the present. In an hour or two, the people begin to leave and soon it’s time to pack up. His agent goes to get some lunch, leaving Erwin to his own mad delusions once again. He’s thankful for them, they keep him company. Keep him from the brink of insanity. Or maybe... it’s too late for that…

 

Erwin doesn’t hear the clearing of a throat behind him, almost doesn’t register the comment that follows:

“I can’t believe you called me a midget in that fucking book of yours,” the voice says.

 

Erwin’s fingers pause on the rim of the glass, head turning slowly towards the source of the voice. His heart erupts with a flicker of hope, and his eyes turn to the man, afraid of what he might find. Erwin’s breath gets caught in his throat when he looks at him. This Levi looks so much more different from the Levi he knows. He bears the same low-lidded eyes, the familiar apprehensive scowl, but he’s still… different. Erwin doesn’t really know _what_ he expected but it wasn’t this. This Levi looks so much younger than he remembers him. His shoulders don’t sag like they used to, and if they do, it’s with age and not with the horrors of the life they used to lead. _His_ Levi was never one for easy smiles, but now there are laughter lines on his face. Actual, real, laughter lines - on his cheeks and around the corners of his eyes. They look so out of place on him, but Erwin smiles because he knows it means that this life has been kinder to him than the last. _This_ man looks at Erwin, something akin to fear in his eyes, his expression so soft that Erwin can _feel_ his relief through it, and all Erwin can do is remember those times when, overwhelmed with loneliness, he had compared the memory of Levi to a demon that wouldn’t stop haunting him - but he thinks now of how wrong he had been.

There is silence between them for a moment – blue eyes staring into grey, welling up with tears and all the things left unsaid a thousand years ago. How should Erwin start? Should he say, _“I’m sorry”? “I’m sorry, Levi, for all the things you did for me. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you. I’m sorry for loving you. I’m sorry for loving you so much I couldn’t help wanting to find you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”_ Erwin could fill another book just with all the apologies he owes Levi. All the apologies that get stuck in his throat when he sees him, and all he can think about is how much he loves Levi. Even now, even after all this time; through hell and back, through thick and thin. Through all the lifetimes that have ever been, or will ever be; he loves him.

The silence stretches longer between them, the air tense as both grapple at something to say, but it’s Erwin who breaks it in the end.

“I meant it lovingly, my dear,” Erwin quips, and the corner of Levi’s lip turns upwards into a smile as he walks towards him. Erwin hastily pushes back his chair, and stumbles forward in his eagerness, chin embarrassingly hitting the edge of the table. He curses under his breath and hustles to get up, but he feels a warm hand envelop his shoulder and he looks up. Levi is there, steadying him, helping him back to his feet.

It’s a fitting reunion, he thinks.

“I thought I was mad,” Erwin babbles, “I thought I was mad, I thought I was mad, _I thought I was mad,”_ over and over and over, head buried in the crook of Levi’s neck.

Levi runs a calming hand through his hair, brushing it back softly. “You _are_ mad, Erwin,” he replies, “You’ve always been.” His hand stills, and he takes Erwin’s face in his palms, makes him meet his eyes.

 

“But _I_ followed _you_ ," he smirks, "all the way from those fucking Walls to here. Who’s to say who’s madder?”  


End file.
